The Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) are please to announce that Prof. Christina E. Crawford of Emory University was selected you to receive the first annual SHERA Emerging Scholar Prize for her essay “From Tractors to Territory: Socialist Urbanization through Standardization.” The jury members summarized their decision as follows:

"Rigorously researched and theoretically astute, Christina Crawford’s essay “From Tractors to Territory: Socialist Urbanization through Standardization” (Journal of Urban History) is the Award Committee’s unanimous choice for the First Annual SHERA Emerging Scholars Essay Prize. Examining the design and construction of both the Kharkiv Tractor Factory (1930-31) and the neighboring planned city for its workers, Crawford details the importation of a Fordist model of industrial standardization into a Soviet context and demonstrates how the concept of priviazka, taken from contemporaneous architectural discourse, was productively applied to other spheres in order to facilitate rapid growth in manufacturing and distribution. Her essay illuminates the importance of adaptability within the ostensibly standardized design practices that fueled the breakneck tempo of industrialization and urbanization during Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan. Innovative and authoritative, Crawford’s scholarship offers a methodological model for considering the relationship of architectural design and economic development during the process of early Soviet industrialization."

The SHERA Board would like also to thank SHERA Prize Committee Members Andrea Rusnock and Erika Wolf and Secretary-Treasurer without whose work this prize would not have come to fruition.